


The Various Shenanigans of Peter-Man (aka Spider Parker)

by wjjmwmsn5



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Minor Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson, Minor James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark, Multi, Trans Peter Parker, Trans Steve Rogers, will add more tags as they come
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-02
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2018-12-23 02:03:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11979777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wjjmwmsn5/pseuds/wjjmwmsn5
Summary: After a series of seemingly unrelated bad guys, Peter begins to notice some patterns, and begins to unravel something much larger than what meets the eye with the help of Ned and MJ. Meanwhile, the lovable dork he is, he grows closer to the whole of the Avengers and continues to navigate life as a teenager, a trans guy, a nephew, a boyfriend, and a superhero.





	1. being a superhero is hungry work

**Author's Note:**

> hello here's a long fic woot my tumblr is transpeterparkers if you wanna request any smaller fics for me to write. i'm always open to requests!! 
> 
> it's going to end up being decently anti-accords later on, so if you really really emphatically agree with the accords, this probably isn't gonna be your cup of tea. that being said, it is in NO WAY anti-tony stark, bc while i don't agree with his stance on the accords, i love him and he's a good character and a good mentor to peter. and this having an anti-accords theme won't demonize him in the slightest. 
> 
> idk how regularly i'll update bc i'm really slow but i'm really happy and excited for this, so it should be once every week/every two weeks depending on how busy i get! maybe more if it's a really productive week
> 
> anyway let me know if you enjoy!!! it means a lot

“What’s your favorite Star Wars movie?” 

Dangling in the air a few feet above the webbed-up and would-be bank robber, Spider-Man himself was hanging with one end of a web wrapped around his feet and the other attached to the fire escape far above him. He let his arms fall toward the ground as he hung there. If one didn’t know Peter Parker, they might have thought that he was tangled up and trapped in his own web, forced to be near the criminal that he had caught while he too waited for the police to arrive.

But he found that this was a nice position to talk to criminals in. This one, a man wearing a red ski mask that reminded Peter of his original Spidey mask, seemed open to conservation about Star Wars. Peter had asked him what kind of pizza he liked, if he was down with pineapple on pizza, and where his favorite place to get sandwiches in Queens was, but he hadn’t opened up to any of that. Maybe he wasn’t as hungry as Peter was. 

But when Peter started talking about Star Wars, the guy began to give begrudging responses. 

“I dunno. Empire Strikes Back?”

Peter nodded. “A good choice,” he agreed. He really would have taken any of them as the “right answer.” He just really liked Star Wars. He didn’t do very well when he was trying to rank them. “Who’s your favorite character?”

The guy looked up at Peter, his head leaning back against the wall that his body was pinned to. Peter realized just then how funny this sight would be. They were just illuminated enough by the streetlamp outside the alley that they could plainly be seen, one trapped in a spider web and the other hanging down from a fire escape, in all of their glory. He grinned underneath his mask and tried not to laugh—he didn’t want to disturb the Star Wars conversation.

“I don’t know, man. Boba Fett?”

Peter shrugged. He didn’t understand the appeal of Boba Fett. Yeah, he was cool and all, but he wasn’t the coolest. “I like Luke. And Han. And Leia.”

“So the whole original trilogy. That’s not a favorite character, that’s just a favorite trio,” the guy criticized. It was the most that he had said in one go all night. 

“Well, I mean, I also really like Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padme,” Peter said. He paused for a moment. “And actually, I really, really like Rey, Finn, and Poe, too.”

“So you just like Star Wars.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

The sound of a police siren was growing closer and Peter could see the red and blue lights bouncing off of buildings. “Ooh. Gotta go,” he said, pulling himself up and working his feet out of their position. He hung by the web connected to the fire escape for a moment. “Have fun with the cops!” 

He pushed off the wall and slung himself a web to the next building, flying through the night away from the would-be robber. 

It was dark out and he knew that May would be calling soon to make sure that he would be home by the curfew that she imposed on him. He still snuck out later on some nights, but he knew how much she worried when she found out that he did this. He was easing himself back into the superhero business, to keep both her and Tony from fretting constantly about his well-being. 

He swung along the familiar streets toward the one that he knew the best: home. It was a really nice night, though, so he didn’t go quite as fast as he might have on a colder, darker, or rainier one. There were clouds, but they didn’t obstruct the moon, and there was a little wind, but it didn’t chill him. And even if it did, he had a handy-dandy suit warmer. He had almost forgotten about that. 

“Incoming call from May Parker,” Karen informed him, as Aunt May’s face popped up in the side of his vision. 

“Answer, please,” he told her politely. He was always polite to Karen, and in return she was very nice to him—when she wasn’t playfully teasing him about something. He was glad that Mr. Stark had given him such a cool suit lady. 

May’s contact picture moved up to the very corner of his sight as the call was answered, and her voice broke through the sound of the air as he swung across the street. “Are you coming home?” she asked him. “I made some spaghetti and it’s gonna get cold soon.”

“Yeah, I’m heading back now. There was a robber—or, he would have been, but I got to him—and the cops took forever to get to us, which was mostly okay because we were talking about Star Wars—”

“You aren’t hurt, are you?” she asked him. She was always so stressed when they talked about his time out being Spider-Man, but normally if she knew that the night went by as well as was actually possible, she didn’t mind hearing his stories about some of the criminals he’d found. 

“Nope,” Peter said. “I barely had to fight him at all. He likes Empire Strikes Back.”

The relief in her voice was noticeable when she said, “Good choice.” 

“That’s what I said!” 

“I’ll heat up the garlic bread if you’re almost here.”

“Yup. See ya when I get home.”

“Love you, Peter.”

“Love you too, Aunt May.” 

The call ended. 

She had gotten in the habit of saying that to him every time they hung up—whereas normally it used to be just most of the time. Her anxieties showed up in all of these little ways, and it made him feel bad that he was putting so much on her shoulders. The two of them were so close, he didn’t know what he would do if anything happened to her, so he couldn’t imagine how she felt. But still, he couldn’t  _ not  _ be Spider-Man. There were people out there who needed helped by him. There were people out there that he could’ve helped if only he had become Spider-Man sooner. 

Uncle Ben flashed through his head for a moment, and his heart felt tight and aching. 

He felt a shiver creep down his spine—a feeling that had started happening more frequently, and he was beginning to think it had something to do with his superpowers. It always seemed to happen right before a gun fired, before he needed to duck out of the way of something, before he stumbled across any sort of crime.

It made him anxious. He knew something bad was nearby. Like a Pavlovian response, he had begun to notice his shoulders tensing up whenever his hair rose or that familiar chill happened. 

He knew that May would worry, but he would try to make this quick. If he was lucky, it would be someone he could web up, call the cops on, and slip off. No fight necessary.

He crawled up to the roof of the building he had swung to and looked around for any signs of the source of his apprehension. He went to the edge of the roof and looked down into the alleyway, where it seemed like all crimes took place. He liked that, though; it made the memories of the fights seem cooler in his head. He pictured them like scenes in a movie when he talked to Ned about what happened on his patrols, everything casting its eerie shadow around and adding to the experience. 

Down below, almost obscured by the suffocating darkness, there was someone wearing a navy hoodie, the hood up over their head so Peter couldn’t really see anything about them. Their hands were shoved in their pockets and they seemed to be glancing around a lot. He frowned, knowing that something bad was happening, but he had no idea what. He was currently standing atop an abandoned building, and around them there was nothing to rob. There weren’t really any people out in this area. And the person didn’t seem to be waiting for anything—they were moving, slowly, to some destination, further into the darkness. 

He started to crawl down the side of the building silently, watching them as they moved away. They glanced back but not up, thankfully not seeing the brightly-dressed guy scaling down the side of the building like a bug. 

They disappeared into the shadows, presumably right up against the wall. Peter could still see them a little bit, but before he started to crawl further down the building a bit, a small light appeared. For a moment, he thought maybe it was coming from a flashlight, but then he saw how the person seemed to be  _ holding  _ a ball of light  _ in their hands.  _ They cupped it like they were holding something delicate, something small, something breakable—cupped it like they were holding a newborn puppy. The light intensified until the whole area was illuminated as well as a really good flashlight could illuminate an area, growing only a little larger as it brightened. 

They were  _ making  _ light. Peter would never be used to the things he saw as a superhero, even though he was already accustomed to his new superhuman way of life, being a spider dude and all. 

Suddenly the light flew out of their hands and the brightness grew stronger, until Peter had to look away, eyes shut tightly. When he could no longer see its blinding intensity from behind his eyelids, he opened them. The pavement in front of the person who was still leaning up against the building seemed morphed, like it had been seared by the light.

“Holy shit,” he whispered. 

“That is impressive,” Karen chimed in.

He didn’t know what to do about this. They weren’t technically hurting anything. They were just like Peter, playing around with these things inside them. He wondered what had caused it for them.

He knew that unless they did something bad, there was nothing he could do here. Part of him worried that that was obviously a lot of power on one person, and then he remembered again that he could stop a car with his hands and had held his own against members of the Avengers. So he was kind of overpowered for a kid, too, but he wasn’t hurting anyone.

There was no harm in playing around with your power, right? If someone came around and told him to stop climbing up buildings just because it seemed like he  _ should  _ repress his powers, he would be really annoyed.

So, worried he wasn’t doing the right thing but also somehow certain he was, he crawled away from the building, and headed back toward home. 

Once he was safely away from the alley to where the person wouldn’t hear, he asked Karen, “Should I call Mr. Stark?”

“Calling Tony ‘Wow I Actually Have Iron Man In My Contacts,’” Karen informed him.

“No, no, no, hang up, hang up,” Peter said, huffing. “Karen, you have to listen to me better. Also, can you change his contact name?”

“What would you like Tony Wow I Actually Have Iron Man In My Contacts’s new name to be?” she asked him as she hung up. He could tell that she was just being snarky. Sometimes she got like that, always to tease him. 

“Just— Tony Stark,” he told her.

“Calling Just Tony Stark.”

“No, Karen! That’s not what I meant!”

“Contact name changed to Tony Stark,” she told him, and he was sure there would be a grin on her face if she were a real person with a body. That would be weird. Peter suddenly wondered if Tony ever felt weird about the Vision guy technically being his old AI.

He let out a breath. “Thank you.” He hesitated. “You never answered my question.”

“It’s entirely up to you, Peter,” she told him. Her voice softened, like it did when they were having real conversations. Sometimes it was really hard to remember that she was just his suit lady, and not a friend he was talking to on the phone during patrols. Not that he would treat it any differently, because he liked their real conversations that they had. “What do you think is right?”

He could see his apartment building coming up. He didn’t want to turn around and go back now, of course, because he could feel his stomach grumbling the closer he got to home. And he kept picturing if he was that person back there, with these powers that they had to hide and they couldn’t practice nearly as discreetly as he could. He didn’t want them to be in trouble for nothing. Maybe he would tell Tony tomorrow, because he was certain that the person might need help with their powers. But what trouble could they get in just for  _ having  _ them? 

“Thanks, Karen,” he said. It was always nice when she helped him make decisions, or at least when she helped him feel better about the ones he already made.

He crawled into his bedroom window and changed into regular clothes so he could go out and eat supper. When he went into the kitchen and announced, “Hey, May, I’m home,” she jumped a little bit, turning around to look at him.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that,” she said, letting out a breath with a hand over her heart. “Why don’t you just use the regular door?” 

“Because what if someone saw Spider-Man taking the stairs or the elevator or something? That would be awkward.” 

She rolled her eyes, though she smiled and ran a hand through his hair. “You got here right on time. I just took the garlic bread out of the oven.” 

He went to the spaghetti and took out a bowl, assembling his and looking over at May. She seemed quieter than usual and he wasn’t sure if he should ask why. The two of them were always very upfront with each other, but he could tell that there was a lot weighing her down recently. Sometimes he wondered if she didn’t want to open up about it because it was mostly her fear for his well-being, and that only made him get a guilty knot in his stomach.

“How did your Spanish test go today?” she asked. “Did you study enough?”

“It was easy, it was just over tenses and stuff,” Peter said. It had actually been a little more difficult than he was expecting it to be, but he had looked over all the tenses he was supposed to know a bit. He was sure that he did fine.

May nodded. 

Peter was starting to think that there was something more to her silence, to the slight tension sitting heavy in the air. He didn’t know what to say to break through it, and she wasn’t speaking at all. The only sounds were the normal sounds of the apartment and their silverware occasionally hitting against their bowls. Silence with May wasn’t always uncomfortable like this, but this went on for minutes too long. There must have been something she wanted to say, and Peter worried that if she didn’t spit it out, the nervousness bubbling in his stomach was going to kill him before any supervillain out on the streets ever could.

“May, is something wrong?” he finally asked, looking up at her. 

She sighed and set her fork down in her bowl. “Tony called while you were gone and he wants you to go over to the compound this weekend, if you want to,” she said finally. “And it just makes me nervous.”

Peter didn’t have time to think about May’s concern, because all he heard was that Tony wanted him to come to the Avengers compound for the weekend. He wanted Peter to go there for whatever reason. He wanted Peter to come over. 

He didn’t know if he was going to be able to focus on anything else until he knew if May was going to let him go, so although he didn’t mean to, he blurted out, “I can go, right?”

May looked at him for a long moment, like she was just now considering whether she would allow him, but he figured she was probably just trying to tell if she was making the right decision. “Yes, you can go,” she told him finally. “But you have to be careful. And you can’t go and— and do dangerous superhero things—”

“May, Mr. Stark isn’t going to let me do super dangerous stuff,” he promised her, already eager for it to be Friday. He wanted to talk to Tony and figure out what was going to happen, why he wanted him to come over. He realized his leg was bouncing, the excitement making him jittery. 

He knew that she didn’t like Tony, probably because he had allowed Peter to be a superhero and fight bad guys without direct supervision or telling her. But he hoped that she would warm up to him a little bit, because Peter looked up to him more and more all the time. And he looked up to her, too, and he didn’t like how the two seemed to conflict. 

“Can I go call him?” he asked when she didn’t say anything. “I wanna know when he’s going to send Happy to pick me up.”

“Happy?” she asked, frowning. 

“The guy I told you about, the driver guy?”

“Oh, yeah.” She reached out and pushed some hair out of his face, her eyes so sincere and loving. “Yeah, go ahead, Peter.” She paused, her hand still in his hair. “I know I probably sound controlling and annoying, but this is— it’s all out of my league, and I want you to be happy and to do what you believe is right, but it just scares me that you have all these opportunities to get hurt. And that you put all this pressure on yourself to be a good superhero, but no matter what, you’re a good kid.” 

He knew that she was feeling a lot of these things, but to hear it out loud, he knew that it had been really weighing at her. He didn’t know what to say. It relieved him that she didn’t truly want him to stop fighting crime. It was important to him, and especially after he told her all the reasons he did it, she had understood why it was. But it was still so much for her to handle. His leg bounced even faster. 

“You don’t sound annoying,” he promised her. “But you can trust Tony, you know.”

She nodded. “I know that. I still don’t like him, but I know that.”

He smiled at her a little bit. “Okay, I’m gonna go to my room,” he said. He pulled his phone out of his pocket on the way down the hallway, texting Ned about it. He couldn’t wait until the next day at school to tell him. Once he was in his room with the door shut, he called Tony, pacing around as he waited for him to answer.

After a few moments, Tony’s voice came across the line. “Hey, kid,” he said. “I guess your aunt must’ve told you what I asked.”

“Yeah.” He tried to sound cool. He wanted to sound like he definitely deserved to spend the weekend at the Avengers compound, because he was a cool dude—a cool enough dude that he turned down  _ being  _ an Avenger himself. 

“So, you coming?” 

Peter launched into all of his questions at once. “Yeah, when are you sending Happy? After school Friday? Why did you want me to come over? Didn’t you say Captain America was coming back? Will he be there? Will the others? Do I have a room?”

“Slow down, slow down,” he said. “I don’t know that I caught very much of that, other than yeah, I’ll send Happy after school Friday. What time do you get out?”

“2:50,” he said. “Why did you want me to come over?” 

He was ready to bounce off the walls from the amount of excitement in him. He couldn’t want to go see all of the things there in better detail. And he wanted to meet the other Avengers. And most of all, he wanted to spend more time with Mr. Stark, seeing his workspace, talking to him about his suit. 

“I wanted to do some upgrades,” he told him. “Probably won’t take all weekend, but I figured you’d enjoy seeing everything out here.”

_ Yes! Yes, I absolutely will!  _ “Yeah, it’ll be cool,” he said, but his voice betrayed how he tried to rein his energy back in. He hopped up to the ceiling and twisted himself so his feet were sticking to it instead of his hand. For some reason being on the ceiling was just a better position than most others. Plus, how cool was it that he could just stand on the ceiling? 

“Okay, well, see you Friday. Text me if you need anything.”

Not long after everything happened with Liz’s dad, Tony came and talked to him about how well he did with that situation, and he insisted that Peter could talk to him more, if he wanted to. Since then, Peter occasionally texted him about something exciting at school, or Tony would text him and ask about if the binder he created specifically for fighting was working out. Peter definitely felt like Tony was trying to be a mentor to him, and it was pretty damn awesome. 

“See you!” Peter said. 

The call ended and he flopped back down on the floor. Ned had texted a couple times while he was on the phone with Tony, so he checked that.

_ no way!!!!!!!!!!!!! _

_ are you serious? why does he want you to go there? will you please get me captain america’s autograph? _

He settled down on the floor, spaghetti forgotten, laying back and holding his phone over his face as he texted Ned back. 

He had no idea how he was going to manage through a whole Thursday and a whole Friday at school with the knowledge that he was going to spend the night with the Avengers next weekend. He remembered that he hadn’t told Tony about the person he saw in the alley, but he guessed that that could wait until then. 


	2. when in doubt, text ned about it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> peter meets some other avengers and nerds out at the compound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it took me forever to update............................. whoops  
> i'm in the process of finally outlining all this shit so! that means i should update more regularly bc i actually know what i'm doing (i'm horrible at pantsing shit)  
> anyway i use the word queer in this chapter (not in a bad way, in a reclaimed way) so if that bothers you then i apologize in advance!  
> i'm really excited about next chapter so i should write it much faster  
> leave me a comment if you enjoyed/with your thoughts, it really helps me out!!

Friday at school, Peter wasn’t really there. He knew that was exactly what May and Tony would advise against, but all he could think about was what Tony’s lab would look like, if other Avengers would really be there.

The clock seemed to go by quickly enough, but when it finally hit 2:00, the last fifty minutes were agonizing. He practically stared at the hands moving by the whole hour. Once the bell had finally rung, he was up and out of his seat, shoving his books in his backpack as he went.

Happy’s car was parked outside the school, ominous-looking around other cars parked to pick up kids, and Peter burst into the backseat quickly, slinging his backpack onto the floor and leaning forward toward the window separating the front from the backseat.

“Hey!” he said, grinning. Happy looked the same as always: dark suit, empty face, eyes that looked to be already done talking to him. “Can we just swing by my house really quick? I didn’t want to bring all my stuff to school.”

Happy nodded. “Put your seatbelt on,” he said.

He nodded and leaned back into his seat, looking out the window after his seatbelt was on. He was ready to be pulling away from the city, was ready for the giant building of Avengers Headquarters to come into view. They pulled up to the apartment soon, and he hurried out, flying up the stairs and grabbing his bag from where he left it just inside the door. May wasn’t home, so he hurried out just as quickly, and was back in Happy’s car ready to go.

 _remember to get captain america’s autograph,_ Ned texted him.

He looked down at his phone and grinned, texting back, _i’ll try if he’s there_

_i hope he is. do you know how cool it would be if i had captain america’s autograph peter?_

_very cool peter, that’s how cool_

He rolled his eyes, but he knew that if Steve Rogers was actually at the Avengers Headquarters, he would make sure he took something autographed back to Ned. There was no way he would be able to forgive him if he didn’t. He was sure he would be bugging Peter the whole car ride over until he got there and knew for sure if Steve and the other Avengers were back.

He didn’t know where they’d gone after everything happened at the airport that day, and Tony hadn’t told him much about it when he’d asked, but he knew that the relations between the two groups were starting to mend. Steve and the rest of those who allied with him still didn’t believe in the Accords any more than Tony and the rest of his wanted to give up on them—or that was how Peter saw things, anyway—but for the sake of the Avengers, things were making up a little bit.

Peter really didn’t know how Steve and the others got out of all of that, considering they were, like, kinda war criminals for a little bit, but he really didn’t care. He had always wanted to meet Captain America, and before he went to the Stark Expo when he was young, he would have easily said that Captain America was his favorite superhero. After that, it was definitely a tie, but he had never lost his love for what the captain stood for, even when they stood on opposing sides of the Accords.

On the ride over, he texted Ned about what they thought was going to happen at the compound, and also about some things at school. His heart thumped the closer they got to being there, wondering what spending a weekend would be like.

When they arrived, Peter had grabbed his bags and was out of the car before Happy could open his door. He walked up to the compound, looking back as Happy followed behind. The doors that led straight into the living areas of the compound didn’t just open, so he waited for Happy to come over and let him in.

“Thank you,” he said, going inside to the wide open sitting room, with its tall ceilings and dark blue couches. It was a sitting room for a lot of people, with a TV setup against the wall. He had seen this room before, but never when he would be spending the night at the place. But more than the nice sitting rooms and cool interior design, Peter just wanted to see the science labs—and the Avengers.

Rhodey came in from the hallway, heading in the direction of the kitchen, but saw Peter standing there. “Oh, hey, kid,” he said. “Looking for Tony?”

Peter nodded. “Or just— which room’s mine? So I can set my stuff down.” He indicated his backpack and the other bag he brought along with him. He didn’t think that he had gotten any difficult homework for the weekend, but he wondered what it would be like to ask Tony Stark for homework help.

Rhodey pointed him down to his room, which was much bigger than his room at home. It didn’t have  a lot in it, but it had all the components of a bedroom: a bed, a desk, a closet, some shelves. Everything seemed bare, like a room to be filled, not a guest room.

Rhodey was still at the doorway as he set his bags down. “Like the room?”

Peter turned back to him and shrugged. “It’s empty,” he said.

“Well, it’s yours. Tony wants you to put stuff in it.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Really? Like this is _my_ room-my room? Like I can have a room? A room at the Avengers compound?”

He knew that Tony said he could have a room before, when he showed him the iron spider suit, but this was different. This wasn’t a room he had to turn down: it was a room he could come back and visit, not a room to live in. Like a room at an uncle’s house or something. He had a real room of his own at the real Avengers compound, and it felt like Tony was asking him to stay there whenever he liked.

“Maybe I should have let him tell you,” Rhodey said, smiling at Peter a little bit.

“Tell him what?” Peter heard Tony’s voice, and after a second, he popped up from behind Rhodey, a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Oh, you already let him know about the room?”

“I need to bring posters over here,” he said, already thinking about which he should bring. “I have a lot that don’t fit on the walls at home so I can bring those over here, and—”

“We can get you posters,” Tony said, rolling his eyes at him. “Do you want to see the lab?”

“Yes!” If he didn’t restrain himself he was going to start jumping up and down here in a minute. He hurried out the door between Rhodey and Tony, looking back at them. “Can I take pictures and send them to my friend Ned? He likes science too, and he knows I’m Spider-Man. Oh and also, he wants your autograph and Captain America’s— Oh yeah, I wasn’t gonna ask, but now I am, so is Captain America coming? Like he and the Falcon and them? Are they coming? I need autographs for Ned.”

“Too much at once.” Tony came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder, leading him toward his lab. “Yeah, they’re back at the compound.”

Peter glanced over at him. He could hear in Tony’s voice that he was concerned—or maybe not concerned, but wary of them being back. The tension after Germany wasn’t just going to fade, Peter knew, but it would still be strange to see the Avengers acting so hostile to each other. Or maybe they wouldn’t be hostile, but they would be distanced. Separated by the Accords. It would just be weird to see, when they were around Steve Rogers.

Who was already there. Somewhere around here were the rest of the Avengers, and this time Peter wouldn’t be around them wearing his suit and seeing all of them in their superhero outfits. They would be wearing jeans and t-shirts and hoodies and regular-people clothes.

“Can I take pictures for my friend Ned?” he asked, not wanting to press about Captain America.

“Yeah, whatever, that’s fine,” he told him. “You need an autograph too?”

Peter nodded. “Preferably on something cool.”

“On something cool,” Tony repeated as he led Peter to the elevator. “What, like a picture of me? An Iron Man poster?”

“An Iron Man poster would be great, actually,” Peter said, nodding enthusiastically. He knew Ned would like that. He knew that he would’ve loved that before he became Spider-Man and was actually closed to Iron Man himself. He would still love an autographed poster of Captain America. But Tony felt too real to put up on his walls, especially when he was just a text away.

He wondered if he would be like that with Steve too. He hoped the two of them got along well. He had always looked up to him before, had always thought about the amazing Captain America, the selfless Captain America, the brave Captain America. He looked up to Iron Man and Tony Stark too, but maybe his idolization of Cap came from the fact that, until a few years ago, he had been more like a mythical figure than a real, tangible person in Peter’s world. Yeah, he had existed in the same world, just during the 1940s, but the way people built him up, without anything real to go off of since he was presumed dead, made him more of a legend than anything else.

He had fought the real deal, but that was different. Nothing from the Germany trip felt real, even now when he looked back on the videos he took.

“So you said they’re already here,” Peter said, unable to hold back. “I didn’t see them when I set my stuff down.”

“They’re just settling back in, kid,” he told him. He looked over at him and gave him a look. It was kind of similar to the kind of look that May gave him the first time he went out for the “Stark internship”—a look that said, _Behave._

The science lab that Tony brought him to was like Peter was seeing what his heaven would be like, a sneak peak at the infinite wonders that awaited. It seemed like the world would be limitless in such a place, with all the equipment sprawled across the large room. His eyes were wide as he went over to the first device he saw: a hologram projector, and he could only imagine the kinds of holograms that Tony used to design things. He had always wanted to stand in the middle of the kind of holograms he had seen on TV, in modern sci-fi shows or in documentaries about the advances of modern science.

“Pretty cool, huh?”

Peter nodded enthusiastically, pulling out his phone and snapchatting Ned. He pointed the video toward Tony after a couple seconds. “Wave for Ned!”

“What? What are you doing? I thought you were just taking a picture. Why are you teenagers like this?” Tony said, in some kind of stereotypical Old People voice that Peter heard all the time.

Good enough. He sent it to Ned.

“What’s that over there?” Peter said as he saw a hologram was up. He went over to it, curious, and saw the plans for something Tony was building. It looked like—a belt, maybe? He couldn’t tell.

“Designs for Thor’s belt,” Tony told him.

“What’s he need a belt for?” Peter squinted at the designs. “Wait, does Thor even wear pants? Like real pants?”

There was a long pause behind him, before Tony said, “Peter, I don’t even know what that means.”

Ned snapchatted him back. It was a picture of the sidewalk in front of him with a lot of big green exclamation points. Another came in a second later. _is captain america there? vision? falcon?_

He sent back a picture of the floor that said, _dude vision isn’t even part of cap’s team. but yeah i just haven’t seen them yet_.

“So, you brought your suit, didn’t you?” Tony asked him, going over to the hologram and pushing the designs for Thor’s belt to the side. He pulled up Peter’s suit, and a holographic model of it appeared in front of them.

“I thought the upgrades to my suit involved the metal one,” he said. He had already turned that one down when he turned down Tony’s offer to be an Avenger, but he had thought about it since he called Tony the other day. Why would they upgrade the regular suit when there was an entirely new one?

“Yeah, that one’s an improvement, but it’s kind of overkill for just fighting bad guys in Queens. There’s always things to be fixed in the regular one.” He made a motion with his hands and the holographic suit’s size expanded, until they were looking inside at all the wiring that was visible on the underside of the suit. “I also want to make sure you and your friend didn’t mess anything up when you tore things out.”

Peter rubbed the back of the neck. “Oh. Yeah. Well, nothing’s been different that I can tell.”

“There are a lot of features,” Tony reminded him. “You wanna go get that for me?”

Peter nodded, walking out of the lab and heading in the direction of his room. There was no one else in the elevator so while he waited he answered other snapchats. An elevator was innocuous enough for his streak with MJ.

He slid his phone back in his pocket, and as soon as his eyes were in front of him, he saw them: Captain America and the Falcon themselves. Captain America’s arm was slung around the Falcon’s shoulders, and they were talking to Rhodey about something that seemed a little awkward. But the way they were standing together seemed a little close. Too close for friends?

Was Captain America… gay? Was he dating the Falcon? Were they gay? Gay superheroes? Real-life gay people? His heroes, _queer?_

“I’m glad Tony got you your legs back,” he heard Sam say, and saw him motion down to the devices that Tony had built for Rhodey’s legs.

He shrugged. “Yeah, well— Oh, hey, kid,” Rhodey said as he saw him, coming over. Peter felt like bringing him over was definitely a way out of a conversation none of them felt like having yet.

It was even weirder than he would have thought to see Cap without a shield and the Falcon without his wings. After a moment, he held his hand out and said, “Hi, Mr. America, sir. Mr., um, Mr. Falcon, sirs. I’m— I’m Spider-Man.”

The Falcon rolled his eyes at him. “It’s Sam,” he said. “How old are you? I heard Nat say you’re fourteen?”

“No!” He huffed. “I’m fifteen.” Peter didn’t know why everyone thought he was fourteen all the time. He was getting closer to being sixteen, too. He would probably graduate high school and they would still ask if he was fourteen.

“Little young to be fighting crime,” Steve said, looking up at Rhodey. He shook Peter’s hand, but he was still looking up at Rhodey.

“He’s not out doing the big stuff.” Rhodey let out a breath. “If this is going to turn into an argument, Steve, take it to Tony.”

“It’s not.”

But Steve’s voice didn’t seem like he was still very happy about putting Peter out on the streets to fight people. He was thinking like Aunt May, obviously, but even she got it eventually. He guessed any adult would probably just be surprised to see someone so young capable of doing all the things he could do. “Well, Mr. Spider-Man, it’s good to meet you outside of fighting you.”

“It’s— I mean, you can call me Peter,” he told him. He reminded himself not to freak out. This wasn’t, like, some kind of celebrity. This was just Steve Rogers, a fellow crime-fighter. An Avenger, and Peter still may as well have been an honorary Avenger, even if he wasn’t invited to the big stuff. He had a room here, after all. So really, there was nothing to get excited about. This may as well have been a regular guy. This may as well have been a guy that Peter had known all his life! Or a guy that was asking _Peter_ for an autograph!

Wow, he was really overreacting.

“Good to properly meet you, Peter. You can call me Captain Rogers,” he told him, in a rather detached way. Peter froze mid-shake, backtracking through everything he had done to see what had offended him.

“He’s fucking with you, kid,” Sam said, rolling his eyes. “Call him Steve.”

Steve smiled and walked past him down the hallway, patting his back. Sam followed after him and Peter turned around to see them turning around a corner, hands finding each other as they walked.

_ned i shook hands with captain america and he patted my back and the falcon asked if i was fourteen_

_also ned i think the falcon and captain america are dating_

“You look a little starstruck,” Rhodey said, pulling Peter away from recounting every detail of what had just happened to Ned over text.

Peter shrugged, trying to act casual, but he kept glancing down at his phone. He wanted to share the excitement with Ned. He knew his best friend would be excited to live through this, even if it would just be vicariously. “No, I’m not. They’re just fellow superheroes,” he said, slipping his phone into his pocket. He didn’t care, not _really._ They were just like him. There was nothing to _freak out_ about. “Just fellow crime-stoppers. Fellow, uh, vigilantes.”

It wasn’t a whole minute later before Ned texted him back, and Peter pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked it quickly. _no way!!!!!! did you get their autographs? did you see the others too?_

Rhodey smiled. Peter didn’t know him as well as he knew Tony, but he had been around him a couple of times before. He seemed just as cool as Tony was—probably why they were best friends—and he seemed just as concerned with Peter’s safety. They were like a pair of uncles, kind of, if slightly distant uncles that never came to family events but were always cool and who gifted Peter with a superhero costume.

“Well, hey, Tony’s waiting,” he said, before carrying on his way.

Peter stood there for a moment, looking down in the direction that all three of them went. He was never going to get used to this life that he was living, around all of these superheroes. He wondered if any of them had ever gotten used to what it was like, for everyone to watch you, to save all these people all the time. Every time he helped someone out, it felt so good, to know that he had been able to do that. That he had been given these powers, and he could use them to keep the streets a little safer for people like the lady who bought him a churro. Did Captain America ever stop and think about the lives that he’d saved? Or was he stuck inside everything that had gone wrong, like how Peter still had nightmares about the building collapsing around him?

Peter didn’t feel like a superhero enough yet to be able to definitively answer these questions. He didn’t think that the term “superhero” could even apply to him, as much as he talked about being an honorary Avenger. He was kind of like the Avengers’ little brother, really, a vigilante with powers who went around the streets stopping robberies. But he was never a part of anything big, like New York or what happened in Sokovia.

* * *

Peter stayed up late on Friday, talking to Ned well into the night. He kept his voice down, sure that the sound wouldn’t carry through the walls, but while he and Ned were nerding out about Peter being in a mansion full of the Avengers, he didn’t want to be overheard. When he went to bed, it was probably about three in the morning.

So when he woke up on Saturday, he saw that the clock said noon, and even after those nine hours of sleep, all he wanted to do was curl back up under the blankets and sleep for five more hours. He got out of bed, though, not wanting to waste the day.

He considered just heading out and finding something to eat, like a predator on the prowl, hunting the nearest bag of chips or box of poptarts. But he had never been around any of them without a binder or a baggy sweatshirt on and anxiety got the best of him. He grabbed a jacket and pulled it on over the t-shirt he wore to bed and headed out, rubbing at his eyes and pushing his hair out of his face.

He made his way to the kitchen through the hallways of the compound, eyes still bleary as he woke up completely and a yawn escaping him. Captain America was at the stove cooking and some of the others were around the table. One of them was the Winter Soldier, metal arm and all. It was the strangest out of all of them to see that metal arm, but a t-shirt over it, and his longer hair up in a bun. And the Falcon’s arm was around him as he leaned against him.

Were the Falcon and the Winter Soldier together? Were the Falcon and _Captain America_ together? These were things Peter _needed_ to know. These were things Peter needed to know to tell Ned about later, because he knew his best friend would be equally pumped about their favorite superheroes being queer.

“Morning, kid,” Tony said. Peter turned and saw him in the doorway. “Just in time for lunch.”

“I’m making BLTs,” Steve Rogers said. “That good for you?”

Peter nodded, yawning again.

“Well, hey, I hate to do this to you, but I’ve got somewhere to go,” Tony told him, coming over and putting a hand on his shoulder. “Some people are making a mess downstate.” He glanced over at Steve. He looked so tense, and it made Peter wonder if it had anything to do with the Accords. He wondered if the people “making a mess downstate” were other mutants, ones misusing their abilities. “I’ll be back later, though. You can hang out with Steve in the meantime.”

Peter nodded, still too sleepy to say much. He was a little disappointed that Tony wouldn’t be there, because hanging out with Tony Stark was, uh, really fucking cool, but he understood. He was a superhero with superhero business and superhero things to do.

“Okay, see you,” he said. “Have fun with the Iron Man stuff.”

Tony nodded and walked out of the room. Peter looked at the table. No one he knew very well was in the room. The Vision was there, but he really hadn’t talked to him much. And he had never met the Winter Soldier at all, and had never talked to Cap or the Falcon outside of yesterday.

But it was a room full of the Avengers, and that was awesome.


End file.
